


don't take a knife to a gunfight

by adreamaloud, daneorange (adreamaloud)



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Clexa, F/F, retired hitman au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-15
Updated: 2018-05-17
Packaged: 2019-01-20 07:55:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 15,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12428310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adreamaloud/pseuds/adreamaloud, https://archiveofourown.org/users/adreamaloud/pseuds/daneorange
Summary: Lexa's final assignment for Anya has some complications.





	1. my songs know what you did in the dark

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm restructuring this story to give way to longer chapters! Sorry for the confusion. :) Enjoy! :)

The package arrives at Lexa’s hotel doorstep on a Thursday, in a plain black box with a bright red silk ribbon wrapped around it. No note—no nothing.

_Too sleek to be innocent_ , Lexa just thinks, looking around warily before picking it up and shutting the door carefully. The days since her arrival here have been mostly quiet—she’d just spent the day reading by the pool and waiting for the sun to set.

_And now, we have this._ It’s the first disturbance in Lexa’s otherwise peaceful vacation, so she regards it with as much suspicion as she could muster. She sets the box on the bed, studying its corners as she contemplates how to open it. _Come on, it’s hardly a safe. No combinations required—all you have to do is tug at the damn bow._ She laughs lightly at herself even—she’s cracked some sophisticated vaults, true. There’s absolutely no reason she can’t open a damn box.

The ribbon unfurls slowly once she starts pulling it loose, and Lexa holds her breath throughout. She pushes the lid of the box open gingerly—like she’s half-expecting it to explode. _Won_ _’t be the first time,_ Lexa thinks. _But it won’t hurt to be extra careful._

No explosion follows and Lexa heaves a sigh of relief. But when she peers inside it, the sight that greets her is almost as good as a kick in the chest.

Inside the box is a small, ornate knife—pretty and deadly and sharp. It glistens faintly in the half-light of Lexa’s room, the shadows of the intricate carvings on its handle visible in the glow of the bedside lamp.

Lexa picks it up slowly, weighing it in her palm. It had been a good while since she last held something she could kill with—and a much longer while since she last held something like _this_ knife in particular.

She’d know knives like this anywhere: There’s only one person who could send such a thing, and only one reason she’s receiving such a gift.

Lexa opens the note she finds tucked just under the blade, already half-knowing what it contains: A time, a place, and a name.

_Fucking Anya,_ she thinks, rubbing at her temple in frustration. _Of all times to receive such a note._ She reaches over to the bedside table to retrieve her phone.

Anya answers after two rings. “Well, that was quick,” she says in greeting. “I didn’t expect the rush delivery to be _that_ rushed.”

“I’m on _vacation,_ ” Lexa says through gritted teeth. “Besides--what part of _I’m not doing this anymore_ was unclear?”

“Come on, you certainly don’t mean that,” says Anya. Lexa can still see her sitting behind her desk, legs crossed, champagne in hand—like the last time Lexa saw her. _Just like yesterday,_ she thinks. _Has it truly been that long?_

“I can’t do it,” Lexa says, trying to sound matter-of-fact. “I’m out of commission right now. Can’t be bothered. Busy getting sunburnt. Et cetera.”

Anya laughs. “I did not send a knife in a box some five time zones over just to listen to you reject the assignment.”

“For fuck’s sake.” Lexa breathes in, composing herself. “I’m here for a _wedding._ A joyful occasion, Anya.”

“I know,” says Anya coolly. “Why do you think is this assignment coming to you in the first place?”

Lexa feels her insides go cold and the knife in her hand get heavy.

_Shit._

*

That night, Lexa dreams about Bogota. And Buenos Aires. And Santiago. That assignment in Hong Kong she barely pulled off in time, thanks to traffic. The last time she used one of Anya’s knives to maim someone in a dark alley under the rain. The dark red of the blood against the asphalt. The smell of the smoke and the cities mingling in her head: Taipei. Barcelona. Mumbai.

There’s a cupboard in her old flat where she keeps all her knives like a running count of targets. Some people hang certificates—Lexa stores blades. She knows how the shelf clatters when drawn.

She doesn’t remember them—for the most part, they’re just names on a slip of paper, and of course, money in her bank account. That’s all. Most of them are men—Bankers in suits. Executives in coats and ties. Most, but not all—some of Anya’s marks were women, too, and those were the harder ones.  

Lexa remembers the first time she killed a woman—it’s the first ones that are the hardest to forget.

When Lexa jolts awake, it’s to the fading memory of Costia’s face: Still there after all these years. Lexa feels the sweat form on her brow, her tank top clinging to her back hotly; the sheets thrown off the bed.

She looks at the clock: 4:21. The knife sits quietly beside it, under which Anya’s note lies, now unfolded: _19:00 Sunday, Hotel 100, Clarke Griffin._

*

The truth is, Lexa is in the island for her brother: Lincoln is getting married, and she’s not about to miss it for the world. She has her reservations about the woman he’s marrying, whom she barely knows: Octavia Blake has a brother named Bellamy, and a handful of rowdy friends from uni. That’s about all she cares to find out, really; for obvious reasons, Lexa isn’t very much into family ties.

“You sure about this?” Lexa asks him over drinks, the night before the wedding. “I still could arrange some fantastic escape—”

“ _Lex,_ ” Lincoln says, laughing. “I’m _so_ sure.” And then: “I’m in love with her, okay? You’ll get the hang of it soon enough.”

Lexa rolls her eyes, but she’s unable to keep a smile off her lips. “Whatever you say,” she shrugs. Though older by two years, Lincoln feels more like a younger brother than anything, especially in the face of Lexa’s natural protectiveness—perhaps an offshoot of the fact that they have been practically raising each other since their teens.

Lincoln just lifts his drink in a wordless toast, and Lexa follows suit. “Before I forget,” he says, reaching into his breast pocket and slipping out a small lavender envelope. “Sorry you’re getting your invite so late.”

“I hope you forgive me if I wasn’t able to RSVP, then.”

“You’re my sister—you don’t _need_ to RSVP, for fuck’s sake.”

They finish one more round before Lexa bids him goodbye before parting at the elevators, and by the time she remembers the envelope in her pocket, she’s already in her room. It falls out of her jacket as she shrugs it off. _Might as well,_ she thinks, opening the flap and smiling lightly at Lincoln’s choice of scented paper. _What a sap._  

She runs her eyes over the flowery script, squinting at the small prints and the flourishes around Lincoln and Octavia’s name. She doesn’t know more than half of the entourage—par for the course, most certainly—and she runs her eyes over the list until she spies a familiar name.

_No, that’_ _s not._ Lexa blinks, rubbing at her eyes. She must be misreading it—she’d been thinking about Anya’s phone call a lot. Surely that’s the only way to explain the existence of a _Clarke Griffin_ on Lincoln and Octavia’s invite.

She stares at the paper in her hand harder—the name’s still there, right with all the other bridesmaids.

Anya’s words start ringing in her ear: _Why do you think is this assignment coming to you in the first place?_

_Ah, fuck._

*

“Have you any idea what time it is?” Anya greets, voice obviously thick with sleep.

“It’s 3 a.m. where I’m at, I’m aware,” Lexa says, tone flat. “I don’t care what time zone you’re in. I’m just calling to say—”

Anya interrupts her with a sigh. There’s shuffling on the other end of the line—she must be getting up. The bed creaks loudly in the dead of the night. “Are you calling about Clarke Griffin, because _jesus_ Lexa, can’t this wait?”

“Can’t this _wait?_ Are you fucking kidding me, Anya? Clarke Griffin is on the fucking entourage!”

“As I’ve said—why do you think is this assignment coming to you in the first place?”

“I’m not killing someone during my brother’s wedding!”

“Don’t be dramatic, Lexa. Kill her _after_ the wedding.”

“Yeah, that’s _not_ dramatic at all.”

There’s a click on the other end, followed by a soft hiss, as Anya lights up a cigarette. _Damn._ Lexa remembers how she’d emptied her pack earlier with Lincoln. _I could use one right about now._

“How about you sleep on this, hm?” Anya suggests, voice softening. “Talk about it in the morning.”

_God damn it._ Lexa closes her eyes. This has always been the problem, hasn’t it—Anya’s infuriating yet what she stands for continues to be so _alluring,_ and Lexa has to remind herself sternly just how much of a trouble all of _this_ has been.

“ _Lexa_.” Anya clears her throat, the moment’s tenderness all but gone as her tone hardens. “We’ll resume this in the morning.”

Lexa swallows hard, opening her eyes. “Yes ma’am,” she replies, hanging up.

*

On the day of the wedding, Lexa turns off her phone. She shows up in Lincoln’s room as instructed and helps him with his tie.

“Have you had the chance to meet the entourage, at least?” he asks, gasping a little when Lexa purposefully tightens the tie like a noose. “ _Lex._ ”

“I _know._ ” Lexa purses her lips as she loosens her grip. It has been a tense morning, with Anya’s phone call still ringing in her head, and Clarke Griffin’s name on both note and invite still taunting her.

_After the wedding._ Anya’s reminder pops into her mind, and Lexa promptly shakes the thought off. _Just this, today._

“You look so tense it’s like you’re the one getting married today,” Lincoln jokes, nudging her shoulder. “Lighten up, sis.”

Lexa sighs, facing the mirror to fix her own collar. When she brushes her hand down her jacket, she feels the edge of her gun catching against her palm. “You’re not nervous? At all?”

“I’m marrying the girl of my dreams--what’s there to be nervous about?”

_One of her bridesmaids is my next target, how’s that for nerve-wracking?_

“Well,” Lexa breathes in, staring at Lincoln’s bright, wide smile at the mirror. “Ain’t that sweet.”

*

As if Lexa doesn’t have bigger problems to attend to: Clarke Griffin turns out to be blonde and gorgeous, and Lexa feels her pants tighten a little at the sight. They’re at the chapel early, practicing with Lincoln’s coordinator, when Octavia’s friends join them.  

“And this is Clarke,” Lincoln says, hand draped around Lexa’s shoulder. “Clarke, you’ve met my sister?”

Clarke smiles and extends her hand. “Lexa, right?”

“Right.” Lexa clears her throat, suddenly tight. She receives Clarke’s hand in a stern shake. “I hope Lincoln’s stories have been kind.”

“No offense, but your brother is a shit storyteller.”

Lexa laughs out loud at that. _Jesus Christ, Linc. What have you been telling people?_ “I’m not sure I follow,” she says, but she’s smiling. There’s something about Clarke that puts her at ease--something inexplicable that almost makes her forget there’s a knife at the bottom of her suitcase.

“He mentioned you maybe once? Twice? Almost seems like he’s been hiding you from us,” says Clarke, playfully shoving at Lincoln’s shoulder. “Though now that I’ve seen you--it all perfectly makes sense.”

“ _Griffin._ ” There’s an almost warning in Lincoln’s tone as he holds onto Lexa tighter. _Interesting,_ Lexa thinks, blinking.

“I’m just saying, man--your sister is hot.”

Lincoln turns to Lexa, sighing. “Octavia _did_ warn me that Clarke would try to sleep with the other bridesmaids--”

“ _Hey,_ ” Clarke says, mock pouting. “I’m standing right here.”

“I’m not a bridesmaid,” says Lexa.

“I’m not sure Clarke minds,” Lincoln replies.

Clarke opens her mouth to reassert her presence, but she is interrupted by the arrival of Lincoln’s coordinator. Clarke zips her lips, occasionally winking at Lexa in between the coordinator’s spiels.

Lexa tries to keep a straight face, pretending to listen to the coordinator’s reminders. _I can keep track of a multi-city, multi-time zone assignment--how difficult could keeping track of the order of secondary sponsors be?_ Across the aisle, Clarke starts taking clandestine selfies with her seatmate, pouting at the camera.

“I heard she’s single,” Lincoln whispers right beside her. “That almost never happens--”

“ _Lincoln._ ”

Lexa bites her tongue to keep herself from saying the rest of that sentence: _I’m here to kill Clarke Griffin._ (tbc)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm on Tumblr: adrmaloud.tumblr.com   
> Come say hello! :)


	2. young volcanoes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I guess this is going to be a monthly thing. Hope you enjoy :)

_Past. Some Lexa and Anya backstory._   
_(And then some.)_

 

 

In the beginning, Lexa used to ask what the assignments were for, and Anya used to be big on explaining: Far too often, it was either debt collection or revenge. Somebody forgot to pay a gambling debt? Lexa would come kicking down the door, knife in her boot, Anya in her ear. Drug deal gone wrong, with a side of double-crossing? Lexa even has a specific _sword_ for beheadings—a favorite request for the especially angered.

They didn’t like guns; even Anya thought they were too clunky.  

Lexa can’t remember the last time she asked the _why_ of an assignment; she guesses it was that one in Zagreb, with Anya at the wheel. It had been an extra difficult assignment, as Anya didn’t usually do field work unless it was called for; that operation took roughly eighteen hours to finish.

By the time the Zagreb mission ended, it was already almost dawn. They squatted beside the bodies and the blood, their knees tired, sharing a cigarette and tending to each other’s wounds. The men had fought for their lives, and Anya ended up taking a bullet on one shoulder, albeit none too deep.

Still, Lexa had been shaken—what use was she if she couldn’t keep _Anya_ alive on the field? “That was a close call,” Lexa would say quietly on the drive home, now behind the wheel. Anya just stayed silent throughout, holding her bandaged shoulder close.

That was the last time she and Anya were on assignment together; the next thing she knew, she was being shipped to god-knows-where on a new mission—and with a new partner.

*

Enter Costia: A couple of years younger, but no less dangerous—especially with a handgun. She’d been executing operations in Latin America and Africa, and Anya thought it was a good time as any to start introducing operatives to each other.

“You must be Lexa.”

It was a sweltering afternoon when Lexa’s plane touched down, and the first thing Costia gave her after loading Lexa’s suitcases in the trunk of her car was a cherry popsicle, which they ate on the drive back to Costia’s apartment.

Traffic wasn’t so terrible, but with the heat and the jet lag, Lexa could feel the onset of a migraine anyhow—which was a pity, since Costia’s music taste seemed to not be half-bad, and Lexa wanted to be a more engaged co-worker-slash-passenger, really.

“Don’t worry about it,” said Costia, perhaps noting Lexa’s silence. “The heat gets better. And I have some aspirin for that later.”

Costia’s apartment was sparse but spacious. The living room was undecorated, save for a few old newspapers, and the kitchen had a window that opened to a busy market street. The bedroom had a bunk bed, and it did seem like she was used to visitors.

“The bosses liked pairing me up with the others,” she said, motioning to the bed. “Have you met Echo?”

“Once, in Budapest,” said Lexa, looking around Costia’s flat for any signs that she’d been living here for longer—it was so bare it was like she’d just moved in. “We didn’t get to talk much.”

“Your fault or hers?” Costia asked, smiling.

“Mine, mostly.”

“Fitting.” Costia ducked into the bathroom and flicks the light on, before reemerging with aspirin, as promised. “How’s your head?”

“Nothing water couldn’t fix.”

“And some nap time—you must be so jetlagged.”

Lexa yawned at the reminder, eyeing the top bunk longingly. “Well, I suppose we could go over the mission brief later tonight? My back is shot.”

“After dinner, yeah?” Costia offered. “Besides, I could use a drink.”

*

The city after hours looked nothing like the city upon touchdown. With the streets now lined with lit neon street signs, it was as if Lexa was viewing a different place with altogether different people. Costia’s apartment was a block away from the nearest restaurant row, and on their walk over, Lexa takes in the night sights and sounds.

“This place used to be quieter,” said Costia, sliding into a booth at the edge of the restaurant. The server, a pleasant looking woman, attended to them immediately, smiling at Costia in a way that told Lexa that they know her hereabouts.

“What happened?”

“Progress. Of _course._ ” Though a bit ridiculous, Costia’s air quotes were actually kind of… _endearing,_ and Lexa even found herself laughing along, despite her disbelief that she actually formed the word ‘endearing’ in her head. “Suddenly you got rave parties and street salsa nights and tourists spilling out from all corners. On a _Tuesday_.”

“Festive,” said Lexa, eyeing the beers as they landed on their table. “At least it’s never boring.”

Costia shrugged. “Crowds make missions a bit more complicated. Would have preferred quiet takedowns.”

“You’re no fun.”

“Says the girl who is all sorts of fun.”

Lexa laughed. “I could be, you know. If I tried.”

“And when was the last time you did?”

That gave Lexa pause. She knew Costia meant nothing of it--what’s a little banter, after all, between new acquaintances? Still, it had Lexa thinking: _When was the last time?_

She must have zoned out a bit because the next thing she knew, there was a cold damp thing being pushed against her arm. “A drink to help jog your memory then,” Costia just said. “Bottoms up.”

*

Had Anya not told her beforehand that Costia was younger, Lexa would have concluded she’d been in the service for longer, merely going by the sort of stories she was already telling.

“Cartel work’s a bitch. If I could complain to Anya about these assignments I would.”

“Messy shit?”

“The _messiest._ ” And then: “Anya told me you almost got killed in Zagreb.”

 _Here we go._ “Yeah,” said Lexa, quieter than she intended. “That was quite the mess.”

“If I weren’t so tied up here I would have flown to help. Sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Lexa said. “Though in hindsight, I don’t think Anya expected it to be that… _complicated._ ”

“Sometimes, the brief only goes so far,” said Costia, her face lighting up as if remembering something important. “Which _reminds_ me.” _Oh. Of course._ Costia slipped out her phone and slid it over to Lexa. “This is what we’re doing for the next 72 hours.”

Lexa skimmed through the details: A gambling deal gone wrong, a target’s name, a map. A sum of money, in bold red font. Anya’s curt signoff: _Don_ _’_ _t die._

 _All in a day’s work, then._ Lexa scanned the screen one last time, trying not to linger on the target’s photo, before returning Costia’s phone. “You’ve killed a woman before?”

“A few,” said Costia. And then, off Lexa’s silence: “Have _you_?”

Lexa downed the rest of her beer before ordering another plate of fries. “Well, there’s always a first time for everything.”

*

As soon as they got their timings in perfect sync, after a few assignments, they became Anya’s go-to duo for quick-and-quiet takedowns. They complemented each other perfectly—Lexa’s skilled at hand-to-hand combat, whereas Costia’s expertise with firearms turned out to be a lifesaver, plenty of times.

“I told you I’d teach you how to shoot,” offered Costia once during a particularly long walk home. Their assignment had taken them deep into some woods, and now that it was done, their extraction was by foot. Lexa wasn’t particularly fond of long walks, but she thought it was better than having no legs to walk with at all, considering.

“I _know_ how to shoot a gun,” said Lexa, trying to keep her creeping annoyance out of her tone. It was Costia’s shot that ended their mission that day, since Lexa had been unable to get a good clean swipe at the target, and Costia being Costia, she liked gloating a bit, afterwards.

“ _Knowing_ how to shoot a gun is different from being a _good shot,_ ” said Costia.

Lexa let out a little laugh. Sometimes, Costia could be an arrogant prick, true, but some other times, a particular angle of light could hit her _just so,_ and the sight of her right then makes Lexa’s insides _swim._ Or something. Lexa had been trying to ignore it all this while. _Nothing but pent up energy,_ she dismissed.

“Is that silence _agreement_ , Lex?” Costia teased one more time, nudging Lexa’s shoulder. “Come _on_. Just _let me._ Please?”

Lexa sighed, rolling her eyes. If she could only scowl at that smiling face she would, but no matter how she tried, her own face could manage nothing else but a grin in return.  “Fine,” she said. “If I agree to _one_ session, would you shut up about it already?”

If Lexa had to pinpoint the exact moment it all went downhill, she’d point to that moment Costia took her by the hand and excitedly dragged her to a clearing, her other hand already fiddling with the pistol strapped by her waist.

*

Costia taught her a lot of things. Where in the body to shoot to kill instantly. How to gauge distances properly. Adjusting for wind. Assembling and disassembling with speed. Which weapon to pick up for what mission. Lexa had no idea how Costia came upon all this knowledge—was she military at some point? Was it passed down by family? Was it Anya?

It never occurred to Lexa that someday she would have questions—that someday, she would be the least bit _interested._ In anyone. The way Costia interested her.

_Fuck._

“You alright there, Lex?” Lexa blinked. She and Costia were huddled close, waiting with the rifle perched in front of them. The space was so small, she could feel Costia’s every _murmur._ Now was certainly not the time to be _interested._ “Seems like I lost you there for a minute.”

“I’m _fine_.”

“You sure? Because I could take this shot myself—”

“Fuck off, Cos,” said Lexa, trying to sound casual and confident. “I got this.” Peering into the scope, Lexa listened for the tell-tale tire screeching of an approaching vehicle. “See? Right on schedule, aren’t we?”

Lexa paused to breathe before taking another look at the target and firing, her fingertips hot.

A loud bang, followed by an even bigger explosion as the vehicle catches fire. Lexa coughs and pushes away from the rifle before laughing.

“ _Jesus fuck,_ ” said Costia. “That was...”

Lexa swallowed hard, her temples pulsing. “Yeah,” she murmured, “That.”

This wasn’t their first car explosion, but somehow Lexa felt there was something different in the air. When she looked at Costia to ask if she could feel _that,_ Costia was already leaning closer to kiss her.

*

Lexa tried to not let it get into her head, going from _It’s just letting off some steam_ to _It doesn’t have to mean anything it isn’t supposed to_ so quickly it gave her whiplash.

But no matter. She’s mapping out kills and hits for 72 hours straight, and sleeping with the girl holding the sniper rifle for the rest of the 96, sipping juice straight out of pineapples on a beach.

Everything was bearable, to say the least.

“Don’t think I don’t know what you’ve been doing, Vine.” She and Costia had been fucking around Santorini when Anya’s sobering phone call came around lunch time, and Lexa nearly dropped her gyro.

Across her, Costia looked up from her plate and mouthed a quiet, _Is that Anya?_ at her, to which Lexa simply nodded and rolled her eyes.

“Greetings from sunny Greece, I guess,” was Lexa’s answer. “And I don’t know what you’re talking about, at all.”

On the other end, Anya let out a long, disappointed sigh. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” she just said. “One of these days that’s gonna get you killed on the field.”

“ _Anya,_ ” Lexa replied, trying to keep her tone level. “Surely we’re more than capable of separating feelings from duty.” 

To Lexa’s surprise, Anya let out a laugh—like she’d been totally caught off-guard, surprised. “Jesus, Lexa,” she said. “I wasn’t even talking about _feelings_ just yet.”

 _You fucker._ Lexa breathed in, forcing herself to focus. “Is there anything else to this phone call, Ahn? Because I kinda want to get to the end of my lunch—”

“I’m sending in details for the next mission shortly. Please check your phones.” And then, just as dryly: “My regards to Costia.”

*

The assignments still came, and Lexa took extra pride in making sure they were flawless. _I told you so,_ she imagined saying to Anya’s face. _I am more than capable._

They were just wrapping up in Lahore and getting set for a quick sidetrip to Goa when Anya’s next phone call came.

“What, no downtime this week?”

“Rest is for the wicked, Lexa,” said Anya, and Lexa set her jaw. “Besides, this phone call is not for you—why are you answering Costia’s phone anyway?”

Lexa rolled her eyes. “She’s in the shower.” And then, “What do you mean, this phone call is not for me? What are you saying?”

“Put Costia on the phone.”

“ _Anya._ What does that mean—”

“Hand me my phone, Lex.” When Lexa looked up, Costia had already stepped out of the shower, and was already tightening her robe. “ _Please._ ” Lexa handed it over and crossed her arms, leaning against the wall as if signifying her intent to stay for the rest of the conversation.

Costia sighed and put her phone on speakers. “You’re impossible, Lexa.”

“And I’m on speakers, aren’t I?” asked Anya. “Hello Costia.”

“Did you get our mission report?” Costia’s tone was curt, like she weren’t intending to draw the conversation out.

“I did. Very well done.”

“We still have about ten hours ‘til deadline.”

“Should be enough for a nap then. I need you in Bogota next.”

Costia groaned. Lexa slipped her arm around her to gather her in a hug in an easy gesture of comfort. “I _hate_ Bogota,” said Costia, sighing into the crook of Lexa’s neck.

“You know it like the back of your hand,” said Anya. And then, softer: “You know I wouldn’t ask if there were anyone else.”

“You know I’m your best option,” said Costia, smiling wanly.

“That you are.”

Hearing their unusually tender banter, Lexa couldn’t even bring herself to say something snarky. “So. When are we leaving?” she asked instead.

There was a beat on Anya’s end that punched a hole through Lexa’s gut. “Costia goes to Bogota alone, Lexa,” she said, after a while. “I have another job for you. Brussels.”

 _Fuck, no._ “Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing Ahn,” said Lexa. “Costia can’t—”

“ _Lexa._ ” Costia’s voice felt like cold water being splashed on her face. “Let Anya do her job—and let me do _mine._ ” There was an edge to her voice that Lexa couldn’t quite place, but she knew a determined voice when she heard one. “Okay?”

Lexa swallowed hard. “Fine.” She stared quietly as Costia took her phone from the table and put Anya in her ear. “Send me the details, Anya. I’ll be ready.”

*

Lexa’s Brussels assignment had been simple enough: A businessman with a debt he could not pay, and an affair that angered a very wealthy man. Lexa tailed him throughout the day, watched him do lunch with other dull-looking businessmen, and have dinner by himself, later on.

Afterwards, Lexa slipped into his hotel room and slit his throat while he was brushing his teeth before bed. It was over so quickly that Lexa even had time to clean the sink.

She was drinking in the bar across the hotel when the phone call came.

“Where are you?”

“It’s done, if that’s what you’re asking,” said Lexa. “I’m sending in my report after I put down this glass.”

There’s that beat again—that uncomfortable quiet gap in a phone call that made sure the call recipient _knew_ something was not right. “ _Lexa_.”

Lexa put the glass down gently, noticing the shake in her hand. _Jesus fuck. No._ “Just spit it out, Anya.”

Anya cleared her throat, like she were bracing herself. “Something went _very_ wrong in Bogota.”

*

The next thing she knew, she was on a plane back to base for a funeral.

 _Costia_ _’_ _s._ She couldn’t even bring herself to say it, keeping her eyes glued to the plane’s wing throughout the three-and-a-half hour flight.

 _She had the whole world ahead of her._ Lexa tried not to think about it, but the thoughts came unbidden, unrelenting: They had planned to go to Tokyo, and maybe get in with the operatives in North Korea, just to have a feel of things. Then maybe Australia and New Zealand; Costia had been a fan of Lord of the Rings.

 _And now there isn’t even a body._ That detail lodged a bitter brick in Lexa’s throat. _I should have been there. I would have been able to protect her._

“Don’t be stupid, Lexa,” said Anya at the funeral, hours and hours later. “Had you been there, the _both_ of you would have been dead.”

A closed casket stood quietly at the end of a long, dimly lit hall lined with white lilies. For an underground hitman ring, they sure knew how to setup a hero’s burial for their fallen troops. Of course, Lexa knew the casket was nothing but a symbol—Costia wasn’t there.

There was no body. The explosion that razed the warehouse to the ground made sure of that.

“Then I should have died, too,” said Lexa. “You should have let me be there.”

Anya said nothing. In fact, she said nothing through the rest of the night. She even let Lexa, then drunk off her tear-stained face, hold her at knife-point, Lexa’s forearm across her neck.

“You know what,” Lexa spat. “Fuck you. Fuck _this._ ” She grazed the tip of the knife slowly down Anya’s jaw, but not deep enough to cut. “I _quit_.”

It was obvious, how Anya tried to school her expression to hide her surprise. “Don’t be unreasonable, Vine.”

“You said it yourself: Had I been there, I would have been dead, too.” Lexa pushed herself off Anya and dusted her suit. “Let me fix that for you.”

With that, Lexa walked away from headquarters and never looked back.

*

That night she left town, Lexa found one last package, sitting quietly by the doorway just as she was about to step out. She got down on one knee carefully, checking for wires--which was actually ridiculous, considering the thing had just been wrapped in cloth.

It was sleek black, held together by silver strings. She held her breath as she tugged them loose. When the cloth unfurled, she found a small ornate knife, its blade shining under the hotel lights. Just held against the blade tip was a note, carefully rolled.

 _Don_ _’_ _t die,_ it read, in Anya’s unmistakable script.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm still on Tumblr somewhere: adrmaloud.tumblr.com


	3. where did the party go?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year! :) Posting a bit early to celebrate the year that was 2017. Here's hoping 2018 will be kinder. Enjoy the update :)

_Present. Lincoln_ _’s wedding reception._  
_Lexa realizes Clarke Griffin is more complicated than initially thought._

 

 

They rented a yacht for the wedding reception--Lexa’s gift. Docked by the yacht club, it has a glittery view of the city’s night lights, and is just the right distance away from its noise and clutter. Lexa thinks she definitely got her money’s worth on this one; the smiles on Lincoln and Octavia’s faces are simply icing on the wedding cake.

“Slipping away just as the bridal games start—good strategy.”

Lexa looks up from her drink. “I’m not good at games,” she says, smiling at Clarke, drink of her own in hand. “I’m surprised you’re not back in there doing all the winning.”

“Bridal games are boring,” says Clarke, sipping casually while never taking her eyes off Lexa. “Besides—I know a thing or two about where the party’s at, _anywhere_.”

“Is that right?” Lexa takes a cursory look around: They are standing alone on the yacht deck, away from anyone’s view— _I can get away with it, right here,_ she thinks, feeling absently for her dead phone in her pocket. _Get it over and done with._

But then, Clarke leans in and Lexa’s _lost_ _—_ it’s like Clarke is _radioactive_ and she’s irradiating quite infectiously. “I’m good at following my instincts,” says Clarke, reaching over to tug at Lexa’s tie.

“And what are they telling you right now?”

Clarke shrugs, smoothing her hand lightly over Lexa’s shirt and fixing her collar as Lexa holds her breath in curiosity. “That the real party is where the financier of this yacht is at.”

_This is going to be a bit more complicated, after all._ Lexa takes a step back, fixing her collar herself. “I don’t follow.”

“What I meant was—how can a girl like you afford to take out a yacht like this?”

Lexa blinks, momentarily flustered. She’s had to bluff her way through many missions, but tonight she has her guard down—or is that on Clarke, too? “I have my own ways,” Lexa says, regaining composure. “Anything for Lincoln.”

Clarke makes a small non-committal sound that makes Lexa anxious. _What is it about this girl that’_ _s so_ _… unsettling?_ Lexa thinks. “What do you do?” asks Clarke.

“I’m in debt collecting.”

“Oh, a credit collector?”

“Something like that.” Lexa winks, leaning against the yacht railing, drink almost done. “What about you—what do _you_ do? I mean, aside from bridesmaids.”

Clarke laughs. “I was hoping you wouldn’t believe what Lincoln said about the bridesmaids,” she says. _Is that a blush?_

“Not that I’m a bridesmaid.”

“Not that I’m trying to sleep with you.”

“Not that you had to try.”

“What did you say?”

“Nothing.” _Get your shit together Vine._ “You haven’t answered my question.”

Clarke shakes her head, avoiding Lexa’s eyes. “Which one?” she asks, though she sounds as if she knows exactly what Lexa’s referring to, anyway. Inside the yacht, applause breaks out; someone must have won round one of the bridal games.

“I was asking—”

“What are you guys even doing out here?!” Lexa turns her head sharply at that, holding onto her bottle tighter like she were about to hit someone with it. _Just in case._ She lets out a shaky breath as one of the bridesmaids steps out, her steps already a bit erratic and drunk. “Clarke—we’ve been looking for you!”

Clarke looks at Lexa knowingly, before turning toward her friend. “ _Raven,_ ” she says, smiling. “What, are you drunk already?”

“Who, me?” Raven asks, sliding in right beside Clarke and draping an arm around Clarke’s shoulder heavily. “Of course _not_.”

“Raven’s still in love with Octavia,” Clarke tells Lexa matter-of-factly, before getting smacked up the head. “Ow,” Clarke mumbles softly, rubbing at the offended space. “Well, _that_ was unnecessary.”

“Well, they started counting bridesmaids and found out we were missing _one_ ,” says Raven. “Besides. I’ve been over Octavia since after university, where the fuck have you been?” And then, to Lexa: “Sorry for interrupting.”

Lexa raises her empty bottle. “Nothing to worry about,” she says. “I was just asking Clarke why she wasn’t at the games, myself.”

“Now you’re just ganging up on me.”

Raven tugs at Clarke’s wrist. “Come _on,_ it’s not fun without you in there.”

“You should go Clarke,” says Lexa. “The party’s just beginning.”

Clarke sighs, looping her arm into Raven’s. “ _Fine,_ ” she says. “One game, then I’m out. Deal?” Raven makes a small, complaining noise before finally nodding. “You coming to watch, Lexa?”

“Maybe.”

Clarke just winks at her one last time before walking back into the reception hall, trying to steady Raven’s shaky steps.

Lexa stares into the dark, contemplating whether she should take up Clarke’s offer. _I almost had her here,_ she thinks, feeling for the knife she’d hidden under her clothes. It doesn’t jut out too conspicuously, but Lexa can feel it anyway, pressing coldly into her skin as she walks.

In the end, her curiosity gets the better of her, and she finds herself walking back toward the games anyway, intrigued at the cheering and chanting of Clarke’s name. When she gets to the door, she sees a bit of the action—Clarke’s on her knees, garter in hand, a laughing Octavia seated before her.

Lexa is almost sure that _isn’t_ how this game is played, but then perhaps Clarke just isn’t a fan of rules. Off one side, Raven is leading the chanting of ‘ _Higher, Clarke!_ ’, one hand holding a freshly opened beer aloft.

“I’m not even sure of these bridal games rules anymore.” When Lexa looks up, she finds her brother standing beside her, already considerably dressed down and more relaxed than earlier. “I mean—how is _Clarke_ able to play for both groomsmen _and_ bridesmaid games?”

“I think you know the answer to that question,” says Lexa, and Lincoln just laughs as he offers Lexa a fresh beer. “Besides—double the fun, eh?”

Lincoln hums his agreement. And then: “I never really—I mean, just. Thank you, Lex. For the yacht,” he says, gesturing around them. “For _everything_.”

Lexa shrugs, raising her drink for a toast. “You’re welcome, brother.”

*

Of course, Clarke doesn’t quite just settle for “one round”—she plays on into the night, and Lexa watches from the bar at the end of the room as Clarke gets progressively competitive, drunk and competitively drunk.

Lexa comes up with various internal explanations for the excessive staring— _just keeping tabs on the target, is all,_ she thinks. Or, _maybe it’s the drinks I’ve had myself._

They’re both lies, of course; Lexa doesn’t get drunk anymore, not really. Years of stalking targets through bars and pubs have allowed Lexa to build quite the stamina.

_Must you really focus on the blue of Clarke’s eyes under the shifting lights, just to keep tabs on her, Vine?_ Lexa can’t help but laugh lightly into her half-empty glass.

The crowd thins considerably after the program ends, though it doesn’t mean the yacht empties out completely. After Lincoln and Octavia say their semi-drunk thank you’s toward the end of the program proper, many of the guests stay behind, among them Clarke and Raven, and some other guests from university.

Overhead, the music keeps playing, and the leftovers, drunk and merry still, keep dancing, Lincoln and Octavia included.

_What a happy wedding,_ Lexa thinks, hanging back at the bar and nursing her glass of whiskey. The lights have dimmed and the dark is making it hard for her to track Clarke’s movements despite the relatively empty hall.

“Looking for someone?”

_God damn it._ Lexa tries to disguise her surprise by downing the rest of her drink. “Just keeping an eye on the newlyweds,” she says, nodding over to where Lincoln and Octavia are making out against the wall.

“They look like they can handle themselves,” says Clarke, waving the half-empty bottle in her hand. “And you look like you could use another drink.”

“You trying to get me drunk?”

“Not that I could if I tried.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Clarke shrugs, tipping the bottle over to fill Lexa’s glass anyhow. “I know you.” Lexa feels a chill wrap around her spine at Clarke’s tone, and she looks at her glass warily. “You and I are more alike than you care to admit.”

“I don’t follow.”

Clarke makes a show of drinking from the bottle herself—as if assuring Lexa she hadn’t poisoned it. “Let’s just say—we want the same thing.”

Lexa narrows her eyes at Clarke, trying not to stare at her whiskey-wet lips. “And what is that, exactly?”

Clarke leans in closer, pushing her chest against Lexa’s warmly, a hand upon Lexa’s waist. _How can anyone feel warm and cold at the same time?_ Lexa tries to school her expression carefully, as it becomes more apparent how Anya’s brief had omitted a _lot_ of pertinent details. _Well, to be fair to her, it was just a scrap of paper, after all._ She holds her breath as she waits for Clarke’s response.

“To disappear,” Clarke just whispers in her ear.

*

How they get from the party to Clarke’s hotel bed is another story entirely, though it doesn’t surprise Lexa in the least; she’s no stranger to sudden, ill-advised hook-ups. _What’s one more, right?_

Lexa likes living on the edge, anyway.

To Clarke’s credit, she seems like she knows her way around danger herself; she doesn’t even flinch when she feels the pommel of Lexa’s knife when she skims her hands underneath Lexa’s shirt. “I have a few guesses what that is for,” she says, slipping it out slowly and letting it fall to the floor with a dull thud. “Maybe we can explore that later?”

Lexa scratches up Clarke’s sides in response, making her shiver. “Maybe,” she says, biting down lightly on Clarke’s shoulder. “I’m kind of busy right now.”

That Clarke doesn’t have anything on her disappoints Lexa slightly. _We’re not alike, not at all,_ she thinks, although the sight of Clarke’s bare skin underneath her dress quickly shifts that disappointed feeling to one of awe.

“Like what you see?” Clarke asks, stretching for show. Lexa feels her mouth go dry.

“It’s not so bad,” says Lexa, swallowing hard.

Clarke laughs, tugging at Lexa’s belt, pulling her closer. “Oh, I can be good,” she just says. “I can be _really_ good.”

*

This is how Lexa finds out that Clarke is true to her word: She is on her back in the dark, and Clarke is looking up from between her legs, smiling.

Lexa feels the shiver crawl from the bottom of her spine to her nape. She is all too hot where Clarke is holding her down by her hips, and cold everywhere else.

“ _Clarke._ ” She means it as a threat, but it comes out as a plea. Clarke laughs, hoarse and molten against the inside of Lexa’s thigh.

“Yes?”

Lexa bunches the sheets in her hands, tugging like she could beckon Clarke closer like that. Clarke notices as much and wraps a hand around Lexa’s wrist lightly.

“Something you want?” asks Clarke, still smiling, her breath warm against Lexa. She licks and bites at the underside of Lexa’s thigh playfully, just to be horrible. Lexa draws a deep breath.

“ _Jesus._ ”

“Nuh-uh, this is all _me_ hon.”

Lexa tries to laugh but the sound gets caught in her throat, and all she manages is a soft whine. “Fine. Just…”

“Just?” Clarke’s enjoying this; of course, she is. And to be honest, on some level, Lexa’s enjoying it, too—especially now that Clarke’s raking her fingernails down her leg. “Oh, I knew you were going to be fun, Lexa—but I didn’t think you’d be _this_ fun.”

“Shut up, Clarke.”

“Or _what?_ ” Clarke challenges, lowering herself and hovering closer. Lexa screws her eyes shut, biting her tongue. “Or you’d suffocate me with your thighs?”

Lexa tightens them at the suggestion, closing around Clarke’s ears firmly. _Come to think of it,_ she just thinks, but it doesn’t feel _dangerous,_ not at all. If anything, it feels like surrender.

Even Clarke laughs at the utter helplessness of it.

“Aren’t you just precious?” she asks, before finally closing the gap with her tongue.

_Too warm, too wet, too much._ The words run around Lexa’s head as Clarke keeps tasting her; savoring her so thoroughly that she forgets where she is—in Clarke’s hotel room, just hours after her brother’s wedding, with Anya’s knife under the bed.

Lexa’s known a handful of complicated hits all her life, but even in her sex-fogged mind, she knows nothing’s quite as complicated as _this_.

When she comes down from her high—after coming on Clarke’s tongue, and on her tits, around her fingers, and everywhere else—Lexa turns Clarke over and plants a kiss on Clarke’s nape.

“My turn,” she just whispers, and Clarke all but melts into the mattress, her moan caught in the pillows.

The first thing to Lexa’s mind is that Clarke tastes like oranges—an entirely clichéd thought to be having while going down on a girl, true, but what could she do? The citrus doesn’t leave her tongue.

Clarke moans like nobody’s business, and Lexa wonders about the hotel walls and how thin they could be. “ _Clarke._ ” This time, it sounds exactly like the warning she intends it to be.

Clarke sighs in response, backing further into Lexa’s mouth like she’s entitled to it. Lexa laughs and keeps Clarke away, hands braced against her ass.

“Who _cares,_ Lex?” asks Clarke, flipping her hair as she looks over her shoulder briefly. “ _Nobody_ knows us here.”

_We don’t even know each other,_ Lexa almost replies, but instead she bites at Clarke’s butt cheek playfully. “Is that right?”

“Jesus _fuck,_ Lexa, I swear—”

“Or you swear _what,_ Clarke?” asks Lexa, hovering close enough to see Clarke quiver.

And then, off her silence: “Oh, aren’t you just _precious?_ ”

*

Lexa wakes to her phone vibrating on the nightstand and she slips out just in time to answer it without waking Clarke.

“Is it done?”

Lexa pins her phone between her neck and her ear as she buttons her pants back on and grabs her shirt off the floor. “And _hello_ to you, too, Anya,” she greets flatly.

“I asked a question.”

Lexa glances over at the bed, where Clarke’s still sleeping with her back turned. With the sheets just fallen off Clarke’s shoulder, Lexa can see the ghost of a small tattoo near her shoulder blade. From where she’s standing, Lexa thinks it’s an anchor.

“And I’m still working on it,” she answers, lining up her shirt’s buttons in the half-light. She scans the room for her shoes; she sees them right under the bed, right beside the knife that Clarke had taken off her.

_The knife. Clarke. Fucking Christ._

“It’s been more than twelve hours since the wedding, Vine. What’s taking you so long?”

“I’ll call you.”

“Lexa.”

“Goodbye, Anya.” Lexa cuts the phone call midway through Anya’s reply, swallowing what’s left of a curse at the tip of her tongue.

When she looks back at the bed, it’s empty.

“Looking for this?” Clarke asks. She’s already standing near the bathroom door, the sheet wrapped around her, Lexa’s knife in her hand.

_Shit._ “Hey,” says Lexa instead, scratching the back of her ear. “How did you sleep?”

“Charming,” Clarke replies, smiling as she twirls the knife in her hand. “Old girlfriend?”

“Excuse me?”

“You were on the phone earlier.”

“Oh.” Lexa blinks, like she’s parsing the question. “ _Oh._ No, not at all.”

Clarke shrugs. “Oh. Your handler then?”

Her attention caught, Lexa re-arranges herself against the wall on her side of the room. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Don’t play coy, Lex,” says Clarke. “You know what I mean.”

_Ten minutes ago I was naked in bed with this woman. Where did she go? “_ Clarke.”

“From where I stand, this could go one of two ways,” says Clarke, taking a firmer grip of the knife. Lexa swallows hard at the sight. “You could tell me more about why you were carrying this knife all night, or.”

“Or?”

“You know what I mean.”

“You’re really bad at completing your sentences, aren’t you?”

In the split-second that Lexa takes to roll her eyes, Clarke manages to cross the space between them and pin Lexa against the wall, pressing the blade lightly against Lexa’s neck. 

“ _Clarke._ ”

“Nice knife,” Clarke says, shifting the angle carefully. “How many have you killed with it?”

“None,” says Lexa, quite truthfully—it _had_ been sent over for this specific mission, after all. “Now can we _please_ put down the knife?”

“What’s this doing tucked behind you then?”

“What can I say, I’m a hobbyist.”

“At your brother’s wedding?”

“I’m an _eccentric_ hobbyist.”

“Liar.”

The word hits Lexa’s ear like a hot slap, and she feels her grip around Clarke’s knife-holding hand tighten, summoning strength along with a peculiar rage that allows her to push the knife away. Lexa watches Clarke’s eyes widen, first in surprise, and then in thinly veiled fright, as Lexa overpowers her and turns the tables in a snap.

“Touche,” Clarke gasps, catching her breath, the blade now hovering just under her jaw. “This your plan all along?”

Lexa blinks. _Shit. How is this so hard?_ She remembers Anya’s voice over the phone; her handwriting on the note. _Literally centimeters from getting the job done. Get it over with, Vine._

Instead, she feels the rage retreat from her fingertips and drain backwards into her wrists, her arms, her shoulders, down her spine. Then, gone.

“Shit,” she just says, pulling her knife back and stashing it behind her, quick like an old habit. “ _Shit._ ”

Clarke laughs, the sound a bit jittery, as she awkwardly rubs at her neck. “Well, then,” she says, clearing her throat. “How about a truce?”

Lexa walks to the bed, sits and cradles her face in her hands. _Jesus, this is not going as planned._ “You don’t understand.”

“Oh, try me.” Clarke sits beside Lexa, pulling the sheets tighter around herself, their shoulders touching. And then, after a quiet while: “I told you, I know you.”

“How can you be so sure?”

Clarke sighs. “You think I won’t recognize my own reflection when I see it?”

 


	4. the phoenix

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here be an advance Valentine treat for this week. Enjoy :)

 

 

 

_Past. Anya tries to make it up to Lexa by offering her the opportunity of a lifetime._

 

 

Falling off the grid, much to Lexa’s surprise, was an easier feat to pull off than she had initially imagined. Truth be told, she expected more random notes pierced over blades left at her doorstep, or maybe a couple of henchmen hidden in some dark alleyway, ready to intercept her on the way home from the liquor store after midnight.

But days turned into weeks, into months—still, no ambush nor cryptic message, nor a mysterious threatening phone call. Life, for the first time in a rather long while, was quiet to the point of numbing boredom. It made Lexa antsy; peacetimes were never to be trusted, and so Lexa made it a point to tuck a knife somewhere on her person whenever she went out for a walk.

_Just in case_ , she just thought, counting the bananas in her grocery cart for the nth time before checking them out. _Numbing boredom, what did I tell you?_

If her waking hours were boring, they were the exact opposite of her dreams—if anything, they retained the violence that Lexa had always expected to lurk beyond every corner and curb. 

She dreamt of Costia often. No—scratch that—she dreamt of Costia _always_. Lexa wasn’t even sure if her dream was how it actually happened, but the details were always somewhat the same: A warehouse, a big firefight, an explosion. Costia shooting her way out, alone.

Lexa was in the middle of such dream when her phone rang—a first, too, in a long while. After all, wasn’t that what falling off the grid meant? Instinctively, she reached for the gun under her pillow before answering.

“Hello, Lexa.”

_Shit_. Lexa sighed as she slipped out of bed and turned on the lamp. “How the hell did you get this number?” she asked. She didn’t bother with the pleasantries; she’d know Anya’s voice anywhere.

“How’s your vacation?”

“Permanent,” she answered dryly, hating how she could tell that Anya’s up to something—and at this hour, too. “You didn’t get the memo?”

The line went quiet briefly, before: “What if I told you we could give you what you want the most at this hour?”

It was a little past 3 a.m. _What I want is peaceful sleep_ , Lexa thought, letting a bitter laugh escape her lips. “Fuck off, Anya. If you knew what I truly wanted, you wouldn’t be calling right now.”

“Is that right?” Anya asked. It infuriated Lexa, how calm and composed she was, when Costia was dead, and it was Anya who had sent her to her death. The thought made Lexa’s jaw clench. “Well, I just thought I’d give you a heads up anyhow about what’s coming.”

“What makes you think I care?”  
  
“Because it involves Costia’s last mission to Bogota.” _Well, fuck_. Lexa was now more awake. “Go on.”

“We’re sending someone back in to finish it,” said Anya. “Avenge Costia’s death.” 

Lexa took a deep breath. _Fuck_. “Let me have them,” she said, staring at the gun in her hand. “I want to look them in the eye before I end them.”

In the pause that came after, she couldn’t tell if on the other end of the line, Anya was pleased or relieved or even surprised. “Take a crew with you,” Anya said, after a while. “We’re not taking chances this time.”

_So be it_. “Fine,” said Lexa. “But they follow my lead. Understood?”

Anya did not even miss a beat. “Yes, Commander.”

*

The warehouse stood in an abandoned part of the city, and it looked somewhat familiar to Lexa—like it had been snatched straight out of a dream.

Their instructions were to strike at midnight. Lexa had come with a crew, as instructed; they’d been holed up for hours in a dingy room across the street, watching from their window as people walked into the warehouse and eventually left.

By sunset, Lexa was already impatient, but she kept her eye on her watch. _T- minus 6 hours_ , she reminded herself, cleaning her blade. _We can’t screw this up_.

By five minutes to midnight, Lexa was already standing by the warehouse door, counting down. “Well then,” she told her men, grim-looking as they gripped their guns tighter. “Good luck. Try not to die.”

*

Lexa couldn’t help but be reminded of Zagreb with Anya—the smell of gunpowder mixing with the blood and the asphalt.

She tried not to think about the pulsing pain radiating from a spot on her left shoulder which had been grazed by a bullet earlier. _Focus, Vine_. She looked around, surveying the bodies on the floor for faces she knew—she’d already lost a couple of her men, and off the side she could count two more dead.

_Shit_. She was down to her last magazine, and she could still hear gunfire, albeit now fainter, more sporadic; like the people firing them were on their final few bullets. Still, her sleeve kept growing warmer with blood.

She backed her last kill into a corner before shooting him in the head, after which Lexa’s ears rang with a deafening sort of silence. Smoke hung in the air as the last of her men gathered around her, many of them limping and bruised.

“You’ve been shot, Commander,” said one, though when Lexa turned to him, he wasn’t doing well himself.

“So have you,” said Lexa, sighing. While they managed to kill all targets, they had also lost half their team to the gunfight. Lexa swallowed hard, thinking about how she was going to have to include all this loss in her report. “We take our own men home.” And then, as they dispersed slowly: “Then we burn everything else.”

*

Anya herself conducted Lexa’s debrief, a couple of days after their mission returned to base. Lexa slept for so long she was disoriented when she woke up in her quarters, and had no idea of the hour.

“How are you feeling?” Anya asked, after Lexa had already seated and composed herself across her. There was a pack of cigarettes on the table between them, an empty ashtray and a tall glass of water.

Lexa tried not to wince although her arm was heavy with pain. “How bad do I look?” she asked, shrugging her uninjured shoulder. “How are the others?”

“In recovery.”

Lexa nodded. “And the dead?”

“Seven in all. The funeral is tomorrow.” And then: “You did your best. Congratulations nevertheless.” Anya tried a tight smile as she offered Lexa the cigarettes, which Lexa took, after a moment’s consideration. “How’s the shoulder?” 

“Hurts,” says Lexa, taking a drag. “Didn’t see the shot coming. Kind of like Zagreb, but me instead of you.”

“Ah, fuck.” Anya touches her shoulder gingerly, like she’s trying to recall where it hurt, once. “Zagreb was a bitch.”

“Yes it was.”

“How do you feel?”

“I’ll give it a couple of days more.”

Anya shook her head. “I was not talking about your shoulder.”

Oh. Lexa took one last drag off her cigarette before crushing it against the ashtray. “You mean, how I feel about killing off the men that killed Costia?”

“I wanted you to have your closure, Lexa.”

“And there it was,” said Lexa, trying to appear satisfied—trying, of course, being the operative word. _This was supposed to feel good—this was supposed to feel better than this_ , Lexa insisted to herself, like she could just ignore the big gaping vacancy in the middle of her chest.

“Was it?”

“Yeah, it was.” When Lexa met Anya’s eyes, she knew she wasn’t fooling anyone—Anya knew that her anger was still so deeply set; that it was a straight-to-the-bone hunger that could not easily be satisfied, not even by a warehouse full of bodies.

Anya tilted her head and cleared her throat, slipping another cigarette out of her pack. “For both our sakes,” she just said, lighting up. “I just hope that’s the truth.”

*

That had been the start of a semi-regular engagement: Every now and then, Lexa received a small box from Anya containing a different knife for a different name.

“What is this?” Lexa had asked, the first time she got a package. “A freelancer kit?”

“Your words, not mine,” said Anya simply.

Lexa executed the kill anyway; she’d been in Bangkok on leisure, and Anya thought the arrangement was pretty practical. “I’m certain I could make it worth your time,” said Anya. True enough, when Lexa checked her account that night, Anya had already wired a generous sum.

For a while, that worked—Lexa got paid for the one thing she was extremely good at, and it didn’t even take so much of her time. Many of Anya’s targets were too easy to eliminate anyhow; at some point, Lexa almost wondered why these seemingly defenseless people were being liquidated.

Almost.

The minute Lexa caught herself, she shook the tiniest morsel of concern out of her head. _This is where trouble begins_ , she reminded herself, burning Anya’s briefing documents after concluding every assignment.

And so it went. There was at least one kill every month, each in a different city, jet lag be damned. Some days, Lexa found herself in two cities in different time zones in the span of twenty-four hours; some weeks, she could afford a totally cut-off vacation in some remote, wifi-less cabin in the mountains.

It was going well; exhausting, but rather well. She didn’t even think about Costia that much, considering.

And then, Lincoln texts about getting married. If anything had pushed her off-track worse than anything else, it was the fact that her brother was getting married to a girl whom Lexa didn’t even know—and all this, while Lexa was halfway around the world, sitting in the middle of her room, cleaning her knife of drying blood.

She thinks about Lincoln in a suit, and the smile on his face. _Why am I even doing this?_  

Taking her phone off the bedside table, she dialed Anya’s number. “My brother’s getting married,” said Lexa without preamble. “I don’t want to do this anymore.”


	5. the mighty fall

 

_Present. Clarke and Lexa talk about some hard truths._

 

 

 

“So. Which of it was real?”

Lexa watches from the bed as Clarke washes her face in the bathroom, the door left ajar. Lexa listens to the water flow and then stop, staring as Clarke’s shadow moves across the column of light on the floor.

“Hm?” Clarke steps back out, patting her face with a towel as she walks back to sit beside Lexa. Her thighs are cold where they meet Lexa’s on the bed. “What do you mean, which?”

“Is Clarke Griffin even your real name?”

Clarke laughs, tilting her head. “Yes,” she says. “That is actually my real name. Is Lexa yours?”

“My handler wanted me to take on some sort of alias, like Heda or something. Didn’t quite stick. So yes, Lexa is my real name.”

“Heda?”

“It meant ‘queen’ in the town where she grew up.”

“You and your handler seemed pretty close.”

“Eh,” Lexa shrugs. _Better not get into that._ “It’s complicated,” she just says.

“Tell me about it,” Clarke replies. “ _My_ handlers wanted to kill me.”

“Excuse me? _Handlers?_ ”

Clarke blinks, sitting up straighter. “That’s—they were the ones who sent you, right?” And then, realizing how she must have assumed wrong, Clarke faces Lexa fully. “ _Shit_. You were sent blind.”

Lexa swallows the lump in her throat, her mind racing. _What is Clarke talking about?_ “I have no idea what you’re saying,” she admits, after giving it a moment’s thought. “I was told only the bare minimum—who, when, where. No why’s. The how was up to me, although they always sent a knife anyway.”

“And for good reason—you’re damn good with them,” Clarke says. “I knew right from the start, you know?”

“Knew what?”

“That you were the operative sent to kill me. In my head, I just went, ‘So you’re the one.’”

 _Talk about getting made from the get-go._ Lexa wants to beat herself up badly for such failure, but she needs answers. _Self-flagellation could wait._

“Hope I didn’t disappoint?”

“Well, that depends—I’m still alive, aren’t I?”

“So you _are_ disappointed?” Lexa can’t believe she’s giving in to this urge to _banter_ , but here she is. After all, they’re _still_ in bed.

“Are you?” Clarke asks back.

“I’m not even sure anymore,” says Lexa. Then, growing more serious: “Why did your handlers want you dead, Clarke?”

Clarke breathed in, like she was bracing herself for something. “It’s a long story. Wanna get a drink?”

*

The hotel bar is empty when Clarke and Lexa arrive, save for the bartender wiping the last of the glasses behind it. He looks up just as Clarke steps in, still managing a smile despite the obviously long day he’s had.

Lexa walks up to him, offers him a wad of cash. “Sorry to walk in so late. We’d be happy to just have a couple of bottles of whiskey off the shelf and drink by ourselves.” And then, smiling sweetly: “We promise not to get you in any trouble in the morning.”

The bartender looks at her uncertainly before shifting his eyes to the money being pushed into his hand. After a moment’s indecision, he takes the money before moving toward the glass cabinet and getting what Lexa requested.

“Thank you,” says Clarke, watching him walk away and close the door after him. “Well,” she turns to Lexa. “Are you usually that persuasive?”

“If he heard what we would talk about, I’d probably have to kill him,” Lexa replies. “I did what I could to spare him.”

“How generous,” Clarke says, opening the bottle and pouring the first round. “I’d drink to that.”

Lexa lifts her glass with a smile. “To sparing bystanders then.”

“To disappearing,” says Clarke in turn, before knocking back her first shot.

They drink quietly for the first few rounds as Lexa indulges Clarke’s silence. Instead, she watches carefully as Clarke tries to keep her face blank throughout, though to Lexa it is clear as day, the myriad of emotions that Clarke tries to keep under her skin.

“You okay over there?” asks Lexa, just to have something to fill the dead air with. “You’ve been quiet.”

Clarke stares into the bottom of her now-empty glass, and Lexa reaches over to open the bottle for her. Clarke smiles, watching as Lexa pours her another. “It’s been a long day,” she just says. “And I’ve been on the run for far too long.”

“How long?”

“Let’s just say before I came out here for Octavia’s wedding, I’d been to three different cities, just shaking off my unwanted _travel-mates_.”

“Only to find another one here,” Lexa sighs. “You ready to answer my question? Why did your handlers want you dead? Hell, why did you even have _handlers_ to begin with?”

“Seriously?” asks Clarke, holding her now-empty glass mid-air. “Your handler doesn’t really tell you anything, no?”

“Let’s just say I prefer to work blind.”

“And yet here you are with your questions,” Clarke says, though not unkindly. “I did tell you we were more alike than you think.”

“I’m sorry that I didn’t think to assume you were in the same line of business, so to speak.”

“Just a target then?” asks Clarke. “For the record—what did you think was I into?”

Lexa tilts her head, squinting as if studying Clarke. “Honestly, I thought you pulled off a con. Maybe a swindler or an embezzler.”

“An _embezzler?_ ” Clarke scoffs, nudging Lexa’s shoulder. “What, you didn’t think I could handle a weapon?”

Lexa laughs lightly. “Not what I meant.” And then: “Are you seriously hurt I did not think you were a killer?”

Had Lexa not been looking at Clarke so intently, she surely would have missed the subtle change that passes through Clarke’s face so fleetingly. “I admit,” Clarke concedes. “It’s kind of refreshing.”

“To not be viewed as a murderer?”

“To be seen for who I am,” says Clarke. Taken aback, Lexa remembers her drink and takes a huge sip. “So thank you. I guess.”

“I didn’t even want to do it,” Lexa says, after a while. “I was on vacation for fuck’s sake. It’s my brother’s wedding.”

“I’m sorry for causing trouble. I wouldn’t have gone, but Octavia and Raven—they can be persistent.”

Lexa thinks back to the yacht. _Jesus, had that really been just last night?_ “I saw,” she just says. “My brother chose well.”

“Your brother’s a keeper,” Clarke says. “I didn’t mean to ruin his wedding.”

“You didn’t.”

“You wouldn’t have been activated had I skipped his wedding.”

Lexa shrugs. “We don’t know that,” she says. “Maybe I would have been pulled out of this wedding and sent to you anyhow.”

“That is weirdly romantic,” says Clarke, laughing lightly. “Though I think Kane and Jaha would have just found another handler in the area.”

 _Kane and Jaha._ Lexa clears her throat. “Marcus Kane and Thelonious Jaha? They were your handlers?”

“Yep,” Clarke replies, nodding and reaching for her drink. “Luck of the draw.”

Lexa feels the chill back in her spine, creeping. “ _Fuck,_ ” she just says, face back in her hands again as the pieces fall into place.

Kane and Jaha had been Anya’s handlers, too.

*

Clarke stares at the now-empty bottle on the table between them. “You’re fucking kidding me, right?”

“I’m not. I’ve run an errand for Kane and Jaha before—my last mission with my handler. That _almost_ got us killed.”

“Jesus. Where were you?”

“Zagreb.”

“ _Zagreb?_ ” The way Clarke repeats it so emphatically has Lexa curious.

“Why? Have you heard of it?”

“Zagreb was stuff of legend, Lexa. You guys took down an _entire unit_. I was certain it was another suicide mission—until you guys came back alive.”

“You say that as if suicide missions were ordinary.”

“They’d never admit to it, but how else would operatives like Costia Gold find themselves alone in takedowns like Bogota?”

 _Costia._ Lexa finds herself closing her eyes at the mention of her name, and the fact that this is _Clarke_ bringing her up feels like driving a shard of glass through Lexa’s chest.

“Are you okay, Lexa?”

“Costia,” Lexa says, finding her voice after a while. “She was my partner—after Zagreb, I was sent to her region. We did cartel hits, mostly. She taught me how to fire a gun. Why take a knife to a gunfight? she used to ask. I told her I preferred to fight with my hands—close enough to feel the blood.”

“You weren’t in Bogota?”

“Anya sent me to Brussels on a different mission. I wanted to go, but Anya—she was insistent. Costia had to go without me.” Lexa pauses, trying to remember that day—she’d blocked most of it, building over those painful memories through the years, so it takes a while before she commands a clearer picture of that phone call in her head.

“I didn’t think she would be alone _alone,_ ” says Lexa. “I thought there would be backup.”

“There was no backup,” says Clarke, putting a warm hand over Lexa’s on the table. “That was on Kane and Jaha, too.”

Lexa clenches her jaw. “I’m going to kill your handlers, Clarke.”

Clarke just shakes her head. “I should have wanted out sooner,” she says. “Live a normal life. I assume you’ve been wanting that as well.”

 _To disappear._ Wasn’t that the first thing Clarke said— _you and I, we want the same thing._

And it could very well be all the drinks they’ve been having all night, but when Lexa looks at Clarke in that split-second, she sees a glimpse of what-if’s and could-be’s. _What if life could be more than this?_

“What do we do now, Clarke?” asks Lexa, swirling the last of her drink in her glass.

Clarke looks into hers in kind before drinking it all. “I have a few ideas,” she just says. “Want to share some of yours?”

*

“Obviously, we can fake my death,” says Clarke. They’re back in Clarke’s hotel room, a newly halved bottle of whiskey between them in the bed. “Maybe pull some molars.”

Clarke is lying on her side, facing Lexa. Clarke does not look at all like someone who’s been up all night, trying to figure out a way out of another assassination attempt.

Lexa shakes her head. “Anya would see through that, definitely. She’s… _efficient_ like that.”

“Damn, you two really are close.”

“It’s complicated. I’m not even officially working for her anymore.”

Clarke rearranges herself against the pillow, inching closer to Lexa. “You mean you’re already _out_ of the ring, to begin with?”

“I’ve tried—I’ve actually quit repeatedly, but Anya just kept sending me knives.”

“The knife you had last night.”

“The knife with your name.” Lexa tries not to flinch. “I’m sorry Clarke.”

“What if—what if we faked _your_ death?”

“I said I was _sorry_ Clarke.”

“No, listen to me—we can fake your death _too_ , and _then_ the ring won’t be running after you anymore.”

Lexa sits up, taking the bottle with her. She twists the cap open and takes a swig. “That’s not—that won’t work either,” she says, turning the bottle over to Clarke, who takes a swig in kind. “They’d be looking for bodies. And, before you even suggest it— _no,_ we are _not_ burning this hotel down.”

“That’s not—you’re right. There has to be a better way.”

“There is only _one_ way, Clarke. You and I know what it is.”

Clarke tilts her head, cradling the bottle close. “What do you mean?”

“I mean we fight. Then we fail. We let each other live to fight another day,” says Lexa. “I’ll go back to Anya. She’ll send me back to you.”

When the plan dawns on Clarke, she manages a weak smile. “You thought this through,” she just says, closing the gap between them, kissing Lexa briefly. Her lips taste of the night’s whiskey. “Do you think it would work?”

“Only one way to find out,” says Lexa, kissing her again.

*

They decide to do it on the hotel rooftop, right before dawn. Lexa thought it would be a cool, quiet place, where chances of interruption are low. She stares out from the edge, watching the city as it slept below. In the distance, the horizon has started parting.

“Sunrise soon,” Lexa says, facing Clarke. “Better make this quick then.”

Clarke rolls her shoulders, puts her fists up. “Ready when you are, commander.”

Lexa approaches, hands bare. Clarke may already be in a fighting stance, but her face still shows another state entirely. “Come on Clarke,” says Lexa, raising her fists in kind. “Make it look _real_.”

When Clarke lunges at her, Lexa is quick to fall, letting Clarke’s fists through. She hits the ground hard, hip against the cracked concrete, still cold from the night. 

 _Get this over and done with Vine,_ she just tells herself, letting her knife slip from her hands. Lexa closes her eyes just as dawn breaks, Clarke’s knuckles in her face, the blood there warm like the sun.

 


	6. alone, together

_Present. Lexa debriefs with Anya. Clarke and Lexa meet again. And again._

 

 

“I didn’t expect her skills, Anya.”

To be honest, Lexa didn’t expect to find Anya still living in the apartment she remembers, but there she is, opening the door anyway as Lexa knocked with her non-bleeding fist. She hasn’t seen herself in the mirror just yet; if she looks as banged up as she feels, then Anya’s in for a slight fright.

Anya does not even flinch when she sees her upon opening the door; if she’s at all surprised, then she’s taken care not to show it. She simply opens the door wider and ushers Lexa in, motioning for the couch.

“Sit,” says Anya, disappearing into the kitchen. A part of Lexa still seethes with her recently unearthed knowledge about Costia’s death, but she knows she can’t be upfront about that; not now. _That would compromise Clarke,_ she reminds herself.

When Anya comes back, she has an icepack in one hand and a bottle of bourbon in the other. “What happened, Vine?” she asks Lexa, setting the bourbon down on the table and handing Lexa the icepack. “You look like you’ve been mauled by a panther.”

Lexa hisses as she presses the icepack over the bruise on her temple. “Something like that,” she groans. “You didn’t tell me she could _fight,_ Anya.”

Anya lights up a cigarette and sits back against the arm of the couch, watching as Lexa struggles with the bottle of bourbon. “You didn’t want details,” says Anya simply. “Besides, you’ve always managed to figure things out before.”

“I was in a _wedding_. She was on the _entourage_. How was I to know? She was probably trained military!”

“She’s a rogue operative,” Anya says, sliding the cigarette pack toward Lexa. “She’s a traitor.”

 _A traitor?_ “What did she do?”

Anya looks at her, curious. “So now you want to know things? Are you coming back to the fold?”

Lexa grits her teeth. “I want to know who did this to me, and I want to know enough to finish what I started.” She takes a swig from the bottle before wiping her mouth with the back of her hand and handing the bottle over to Anya.

“So you _are_ coming back to the fold.”

“Just this one last assignment,” says Lexa, grabbing the cigarette pack and lighting one herself. “Just this last one, then I’m done.”

“Whatever you want, Lex,” says Anya. “Take a couple of weeks off and recover. You’d want to be 100% before going back to the hunt.” And then: “The guest room is empty. You can stay if you wish.”

*

Lexa catches up with Clarke in Barcelona, a month later, at a Gaudi exhibit. Clarke had changed her hair color, Lexa finds, and though Clarke’s wearing it up in a bun, Lexa still easily spots her in the crowd.

“I didn’t know you were a fan,” says Lexa, taking the space beside Clarke. Lexa doesn’t turn her head, but from the corner of her eye she can see a smile slowly spreading on Clarke’s lips.

“They said to visit before seeing the Sagrada Familia,” says Clarke, turning to face Lexa, breathing in. “So we meet again.” Clarke reaches out to touch the bandage still on the corner of Lexa’s brow. “How have you been?”

“Still recovering. I got banged up really bad a few weeks ago.”

“Oh?” Clarke asks, feigning innocence. “Must have been a fight.”

“Kind of,” Lexa says, shrugging. Clarke just laughs and raises her brow. “New hair?” asks Lexa.

“Got bored,” Clarke replies. “Octavia made me promise _no new wild hair_ at her wedding, so I got it afterwards.”

“Don’t outshine the bride, isn’t that what they always say?”

“Just being the good friend I’m supposed to be,” Clarke replies. “What brings you to Barcelona?”

“What do you think?”

Clarke nods, understanding. “Well then. Your plan’s panning out pretty well, I think? How did Anya take it?”

“Surprisingly well, to be honest,” says Lexa. “She let me stay in her apartment for a few days to recover.” And then: “She showed me your file, Clarke.”

Clarke breathes in, like she knew that was coming. “Any _glowing_ remarks in there?”

“She said you were a traitor.”

“Ah, so _that’s_ the press release.”

“It was a _thick_ press release,” says Lexa. “It said you were responsible for the deaths of many other operatives. That you were double-crossing the ring for money.”

By then they had already walked over to a park bench nearby, buying ice cream on the way. “Go on,” Clarke just says, eating her ice cream calmly.

 _Like she isn’t even surprised?_ Lexa is confused for the moment, but she continues as prodded. “In one file, it said you killed _three hundred men_ in a single fire-related incident. Another file said you _gassed_ an entire building and killed even more people, like—are these even true, Clarke? Or are they completely making up charges against you?”

“Are the deaths true? _Yes._ But they were carried out according to plan. Kane and Jaha ordered those massacres. I just carried them out, is all.”

“And now that you’ve gone rogue, you can trace it back to them.”

Clarke nods, finishing her ice cream before it melts, licking at her fingers for good measure. Lexa swallows hard at the sight before looking away.

“I should have seen it earlier for what it was,” says Clarke. “I thought I was fighting with the _good people._ ”

Lexa offers Clarke a napkin as she finishes her ice cream in kind. “Maybe there are no good people, Clarke,” she says. “Maybe we’re all just trying to make the best decisions from where we’re standing.”

“Maybe,” Clarke says, voice quieter than before. Lexa looks at her and wonders about all the cities she’s been to; about her life on the run. “So. How long are you in the city for?” asks Clarke.

“Maybe a week,” says Lexa, following Clarke as she gets up and starts walking. “Are you doing anything interesting?”

“There’s an art gallery I’d like to visit after Sagrada, then maybe some drinks before heading back to my hotel.”

“Do you mind having some company?”

Clarke smiles, snaking her arm around Lexa’s and walking closer. “No, I don’t suppose it would kill me to have one,” she just says, tugging lightly at Lexa’s hand.

*

They spend most of the day slipping in and out of churches and galleries, admiring murals. Lexa discovers just how much Clarke loves spending time standing in front of paintings and staring intently, studying their miniscule details.

“I used to paint,” she tells Lexa. “It was one of the things I truly enjoyed.”

“You don’t paint anymore?”

“No time,” Clarke says, flexing her fingers. “Besides, I don’t think my banged up knuckles could still hold a paintbrush, much less command one.”

“Is that so?” Lexa asks, eyeing Clarke’s fingers for far longer than she should have. _Get it together, Vine._ “A pity that, if true.”

“Yeah,” says Clarke, a wan smile on her face as she walks from one painting to the next. Lexa follows quietly, letting Clarke be, for now.

They have dinner in a restaurant across Clarke’s hotel, and Lexa waits until they are already drinking wine to start asking about art again. “How young were you when you started painting?”

“Sixteen,” says Clarke, looking up from her wine glass. “My dad let me paint an entire wall in our old house once.”

“Sounds fun.”

“I also dated a fellow art major in university briefly. That was… not quite as fun _._ ”

“Was that when you painted a lot?”

“The complete wretched artist experience, actually—drank and smoked a lot, did a bit of drugs, channeled my high onto the canvas. You know—the whole she-bang.”

“And still ‘not quite as fun’ in your book?”

Clarke smiles, like she’s remembering a long-forgotten memory. “Feels like a different life entirely.”

“Maybe it was.” Lexa reaches over and refills Clarke’s wine glass. “Any chance you’d be painting again? I’d love to see your work.”

“As I’ve said—a _lifetime_ ago, Lex.”

Lexa shrugs, lifting her glass to her lips. “Too bad I wasn’t in that lifetime,” she just says, taking a sip.

Later that night, Lexa walks Clarke to her hotel and pauses at the steps. “So,” she says, sheepishly scratching at the back of her neck. “This is you.”

Clarke rolls her eyes. “Don’t be ridiculous, Lexa,” she says, pulling her closer by the wrist. “Come on up.”

 _Come._ Lexa feels her knees go weak. She merely nods in agreement, following Clarke up the stairs and into the elevator, trying to ignore how every patch of skin Clarke touches actually _burns._

By the time Clarke opens the door to her room, it takes all of Lexa’s self-control not to pounce on her right there and kiss her hard against the nearest wall.

“Are you all right?” asks Clarke, though the smirk on her face tells Lexa she knows a thing or two about Lexa’s current _predicament._ “Can I get you something to drink?”

“Sure,” Lexa says. Her throat is suddenly dry. Clarke motions to the couch and heads toward the kitchen, removing her shoes as she walked. _God damn it._ Lexa sits back and adjusts her pants, tight now as they are. She watches as Clarke re-emerges in a loose white shirt, a bottle of water in one hand.

Lexa licks her lips as Clarke hands her the bottle. “Here you go,” says Clarke, sliding onto the couch in kind. She is warm everywhere and Lexa’s hands are so _weak._ Noticing Lexa fumbling, Clarke asks, “You need help with that?”

 _Shit. What am I even doing?_ Lexa abandons the charade altogether, dropping the bottle and reaching out for Clarke instead.

The kiss is warmer and more tender than expected; truth be told, Lexa had expected something _fiercer,_ something _urgent;_ she had expected to be clawed at, grabbed violently, bruised even.

There’s none of that here now; Clarke kisses her slowly, like they have all the time in the world. Her lips are wine-soft, and her tongue tastes like cherries as they slip into Lexa’s mouth.

 _Oh._ Lexa feels so _warm_ , so she reaches for the first button on her shirt and thumbs it open—something that Clarke takes as a signal to help. _Jesus fuck,_ Lexa thinks, feeling Clarke’s hands working against her.

Clarke kisses every patch of skin she uncovers thereafter, skimming the side of Lexa’s neck with her warm mouth, slowly, before sucking lightly at the juncture of her neck and shoulders. Lexa simply arches into her touch helplessly, falling further back into the couch.

By the time they get to Clarke’s bed, Lexa has been undressed, mostly. Clarke pauses, trying to catch her breath, and Lexa notes the trace of worry that passes her face at the sight of Lexa’s healing bruises.

“I did this to you,” Clarke murmurs, touching the tender spaces gently before planting soft kisses upon them. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m not,” says Lexa, weaving her fingers into Clarke’s hair. “I’d do anything to keep you alive.”

Lexa wonders briefly where this _loyalty_ is coming from; she hasn’t tried to examine it closely just yet, and this moment is certainly not the time for such questions—not with Clarke kissing lower and undoing the button of her jeans, pulling her zip down, and then some.

_Fuck._

“Let me make it up to you,” Clarke whispers against her, nibbling at the inside of her thigh, just hard enough to keep Lexa squirming against the bed. _God,_ she thinks, _just how wet am I right now?_

Lexa gets her answer as Clarke swipes her tongue against her and _moans._ “Oh _fuck_ ,” says Clarke, the words vibrating against Lexa’s clit. “I’ve missed you.”

“ _Clarke._ ” Not that Lexa can do anything else but whine her name, hips lifting off the bed and seeking more of Clarke’s mouth. _Please._

And Clarke even manages to laugh— _how can anyone sound beautiful and cruel at the same time?_ Lexa wonders, Clarke’s arm across her hip, holding her down. “I got you babe,” says Clarke, suckling briefly at her, tonguing her so softly that Lexa cries out.

“We got all night.”

*

Somewhere between the third and the fourth round, Lexa loses track of the number of times she’s come, and Clarke takes that moment to slip two fingers into her, curling against her so _criminally slowly_ that Lexa almost passes out the moment Clarke puts her mouth back on her and sucks.

 _God, is she trying to kill me?_ Lexa wonders dimly, the thought barely forming in the sex-filled haze in her brain. All things considered, if that were even true—Lexa thinks it’s not such a bad way to go, after all.

She’s boneless by the time Clarke is through with her. “I need a moment,” Lexa admits, melting into Clarke’s kiss. Lexa can still taste herself on Clarke’s tongue, and just like that, she’s so wet again, it’s kind of embarrassing.

“Take your time,” says Clarke, peppering Lexa’s jaw with light kisses. “We got some, right?”

Lexa takes Clarke’s advice seriously when it’s her turn to go down on her—in fact, no amount of begging from Clarke urges Lexa to go faster.

“Please, baby,” Clarke whines, jogging her hips against Lexa’s mouth. “I just want to _come_.”

Lexa lifts her mouth briefly off Clarke, if only to take a moment to slide back into her with her fingers. “And you will,” Lexa promises, curling against Clarke’s g-spot just as slowly. “I promise it’s going to be worth the wait.”

In the half-light, Lexa can see the scars on Clarke’s body as well—she traces them gingerly with her tongue. Clarke lets out a long moan, undulating against Lexa, her cunt tightening around Lexa.

Clarke’s close, and Lexa wants to draw this one out so she slows in kind. Clarke lets out a frustrated cry. “ _Please,_ Lexa.”

“You’ve been so good, Clarke,” Lexa whispers against her skin. “You can be good for a bit longer.”

“Lexa—”

“Just a bit more, babe—”

“Jesus _fuck,_ Lexa, I can’t—”

Lexa presses her palm just below Clarke’s belly button and pushes her down against the bed, loving the feel of her straining against the hold. “I got you Clarke,” Lexa says finally, curling hard one last time.

When Clarke comes undone, she does so in a full-body shiver that leaves Lexa speechless.

“Are you okay?” It’s Lexa’s turn to ask now, and Clarke turns to her with a sleepy smile on her face.

“Jesus, Lex,” she just says, eyes half-lidded in newly dealt _pleasure_. “You’re still trying to kill me, aren’t you?”

*

“What are you going to tell Anya?” Dawn is almost breaking outside Clarke’s window and Lexa’s still in bed with her, spent and huddled against her under the sheets.

“That you beat me, of course,” says Lexa. “After which you escaped. Again.”

“She’ll catch on, eventually.”

“You let me handle Anya, alright?” Lexa kisses Clarke’s shoulder as she nuzzles her neck. “Meantime—we have a few more hours until morning, don’t we?”

Clarke sighs, tightening her arms around Lexa. “One of these days, they’ll figure it out.”

“That I keep losing to you deliberately and letting you slip?”

“That we keep meeting in random cities, and fucking in random hotel rooms, and keep leaving each other alive,” says Clarke. Lexa says nothing to that; instead, she just heaves a long breath. No use arguing with the truth.

After a moment’s silence, Clarke changes the subject: “I’m thinking about Vietnam next month, maybe. I have a couple of friends starting a kindergarten.”

“You have a lot of friends.”

“What can I say, I’m a friendly girl.”

Lexa laughs, giving Clarke’s jawline a little nip. “Mhm, very friendly. What’s good in Vietnam?”

“Their coffee, I heard.”

“Then let’s have coffee in Vietnam soon.”

“Lexa.”

“ _Clarke._ ” Lexa pulls back and holds her eyes for a long moment before leaning back in for a kiss. It tastes like one of their all-too-familiar goodbyes.

“So,” Clarke says, breaking the kiss first.

Lexa licks at her lips. “So,” she says in turn, clearing her throat. “May we meet again?”


	7. epilogue: centuries

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for giving this story a shot, and for seeing it through the end. Here's the final (?) update. Just a short one, but I hope it provides a nice place for an ending. May we meet again :)

_Present. Lexa, Clarke and an ending, once and for all._

 

Lexa catches up with Clarke at her hotel lobby before check-out, a few days later. She watches as Clarke wraps up her business at the concierge, staring at Clarke’s small suitcase and short skirt.

“Oh hey,” says Clarke, a smile of genuine surprise crossing her face upon turning around and seeing Lexa in one of the chairs. “I thought you’d already flown out.”

“Yeah well,” Lexa begins, standing and shoving her hands into her pockets. “I haven’t, not yet. Listen—I’d been thinking about us.”

Clarke cocks her brow at that. “Oh?”

“Yeah,” says Lexa. “Quite a strange situation we have here, no?”

Clarke laughs. “We’re two people who can’t kill each other off despite being trained hitmen. That’s certainly a lot to think about,” she says.

“You forgot the part where you’re supposed to say, _again and again,_ ” Lexa replies, unable to keep a smile out of her lips. “I know we said _Vietnam_.”

“Technically, we _haven’t_ said Vietnam—”

“Actually, about that—I have a proposal.”

Clarke’s smile wavers for a bit— _Is she worried? Wary? Anxious? All of the above?_ Lexa runs through the scenarios in her head quickly before tossing them away. _Focus, Vine._

Clarke blinks. “I’m listening.”

“I’m not reporting to Anya after this,” says Lexa, breathing in deeply. “I’m done.”

“She won’t take kindly to having an unfinished mission in her hands, Lexa.”

“She can go find some other operative who’d be willing to do errands for her for all I care.”

Clarke shrugs. “I suppose that’s a feasible plan B,” she says. “Truth be told, I do prefer knowing that the mercenary coming after me is you—meant I saw you every so often.” And then, after a moment’s pause. “That is _so_ fucked up, isn’t it?”

“Kind of,” Lexa concedes. “Although what I meant to say was that I want to go on the run with you.”

The look on Clarke’s face shifts from sadness to confusion to _excitement_ so quickly that it gives Lexa whiplash. “Excuse me?”

“I mean—only if it’s all right. I don’t want to cramp your style.”

“Depends. How good are you with children?”

“Well. I’m a fan of _education_ ,” says Lexa. “And by that, I mean I have _never—_ I don’t even have _godchildren_.”

Clarke laughs, stepping a bit closer to wrap a warm hand around Lexa’s wrist and tugging her closer. “I bet they’d love you.”

“I could teach them how to clean knives.”

“How about we start with arts and crafts and keep the children away from sharp objects for the time being?”

“Well,” Lexa says, smiling as she leans in closer. “I suppose that works, too.”

*

_epilogue._

Hours later, Lexa finds herself on a plane to Hanoi, sitting beside Clarke for the next sixteen or so hours. The lights are already dim, and Clarke has already begun nodding off, the book in her hand slowly slipping.

Lexa waits for Clarke to fall asleep before reaching over to take the book from her altogether to keep it in the meantime; when Lexa peeks at the cover, she finds that Clarke is reading an old classic by Malcolm Gladwell. She could tell that Clarke has had this book for a while, judging from its dog-eared pages and the creases on its spine, but upon closer inspection, one other thing catches Lexa’s attention.

Between the pages, Clarke has tucked an index card, perhaps as a bookmark; it falls upon Lexa’s lap as soon as she takes the book and opens it. On the card, Clarke has drawn something—a sketch of Lexa’s face, hastily drawn as if Clarke had been in a hurry not to be seen while at it.

At the bottom right corner, Clarke signed it with the date and the words, _Barcelona to Hanoi,_ in small letters.

There’s a feeling in Lexa’s chest that she can’t quite put a name to; all she knows is that it reminds her of younger days, when flights like these held promise and not dread.

_I suppose that works, too,_ she just thinks, taking the card and tucking it in her jacket pocket, before opening Clarke’s book and reading it herself. #

 

**Author's Note:**

> You're probably thinking, _jfc not another wip_ \-- I promise to see this through to the end. :)


End file.
